ANZPT7 Sydney Day 1B: Ruha rounds up the lead

The sun has set and the lights of Sydney's beautiful city consume the night skyline as our ANZPT players head out to enjoy a beautiful autumn evening.

Another big day has come to a close at the ANZPT Sydney Main Event. When we started out this afternoon there were expectations of a bigger field than yesterday and that's exactly what was delivered to The Star Poker Room as 257 players took their seats for Day 1B.

That bumped the total number to a very respectable 445 entrants with a $912,250 prize pool and unconfirmed top prize of $224,500. That's only slightly down on last year's figure and continues the remarkable consistency of this event over the last four years (Season 4: 461, Season 5: 460, Season 6: 458).

The field was full of international talent including American Ronnie Bardah, UK's James Rann, Canada's Xuan Liu, last year's New Caledonia Poker Open champion Teva Tavita and countryman Joel Douaglin, Japan's former ANZ Player of the Year Iori Yogo, Elliot Smith, Macau regular and current ANZ Player of the Year leader Raiden Kan and high stakes crusher Doug "WCGRider" Polk.

There was also the cute couple in Dean Blatt and Rory Young who won the award for best-dressed but unfortunately for them, their fashion statements won't be making an appearance on Day 2.

They weren't the only ones to hit the rail as seven 60-minute levels of play reduced the field to just 128. Unlike yesterday where a couple of big stacks were very prominent at the end of the day, today's play would see the chips every even across the board.

In the end just one player would reach six figures with Kiwi Sam Ruha topping the counts with 102,200. Ruha has a number of cashes to his credit back in Auckland as well as final table last year's WSOP APAC series, but a big result here in Sydney would be the highlight of his career so far.

Play will resume at 12:30pm on Saturday where the 212 survivors will come together for the first time inside in The Star Poker Room. We'll have final confirmation of final number of total entrants and the prize pool information early on Day 2.

Until then, thanks for following along and we look forward to your company again tomorrow!